pete plan

This morning, we had a late breakfast, and instead of working out, I had a lazy morning. We had lunch in town with some old friends. Then there was a small thing to fix around the house, so it was after 4pm when I changed to rowing gear and went to my erg basement.

The workout of the day was a 4x2km, but I didn’t look up any recent results for this workout. I did a 2km warming up and decided to row this workout as if I was rowing 2km segments of a hard 10km:

Focus on rhythm and technique

Don’t go too low with Stroke Rate – keep the stroke light

Work from a base pace of 1:53 per 500m, go faster only when doing it respecting the previous two bullet points

in the first three intervals, a set of 10 hard strokes at the half way point

Accelerate and empty the tank in the final interval

After the workout, I scrolled through the PM history to find the last 4x2km. This was the result:

Today’s workout was executed exactly according to the plan. No drama, except that the final 300m were really hard.

And here is how that looks in a chart:

I also looked at a few charts to check if I really was a consistent in rhythm and technique as it felt during the row. I had most difficulty to get into the rhythm at the start of each interval, where pace was oscillating between 1:54 and 1:52. The other hard part was around 1100m to go. Here are the charts:

The planned session was the Pete Plan Pyramid: 250m/500m/750m/1000m/750m/500m/250m intervals. Rest: Paddle the distance that you have just rowed.

It didn’t matter that it was 35 degrees C in the shadow.

It didn’t matter that this was my first working day after the vacation. I tell you, spending the entire day in an airconditioned office, and then going out into the heat, it’s worse than just spending the day outdoors.

The Brno reservoir, on days like these, turns into a giant outdoor swimming pool, especially after work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go out in the morning.

Half of the adults are not sober. Some have jumped off their vessel and are trying to climb back into it (which takes a long time after a few drinks). One third of the captains are checking their phones, or have their headphones on. Some are doing Yoga on paddle boards in the middle of our traffic pattern. Our lake is basically, a hot, simmering soup. Steaming. Hot. Liquid. Pieces of meat floating around.

I have made a short video to illustrate the sounds I hear during rowing. Please play it so you can imagine the atmosphere. The photos are taken after the row. During the row, the sun was higher, and stronger. You have to imagine the smell of grilled sausage yourself as I didn’t find a way to transmit that through this blog.

A cox’n: “I s2g I’ve yelled more at kayaks and SUPs than I have at bow 4 combined.”

“They’re basically the one bad thing about my home water. Austin is hipster central, and doing yoga with your dog on a standup paddleboard might be great for instagram, but it sucks for us having to check it down 70% of the way through a race piece.”

“Treat them as you might a toddler.”

“Because most of them are rank amateurs that haven’t even been properly trained on water etiquette before being released into the world. People will literally rent them the boats and be like do whatever idgaf not my responsibility.
In general “amateur athletes” in sports like kayaking or downhill skiing are a danger to themselves and others. They don’t properly understand the risks, think it looks easy and forgo getting trained or get trained by the cheapest, shittiest trainer, and often don’t even realize that there is an actual chance you can die doing this activity. People don’t realize how dangerous sports can be.”

“If rowing takes place on the same waterway as any other human-powered watercraft (or even slower motorcraft), and the non-rowing boat is in front of the rowers, you end up with a slow boat in front of a fast boat with neither crew having eyes on the other. Add to that that human powered craft are pretty quiet and that the rowing shell can’t turn nimbly; it’s exceptionally easy for a collision to happen.”

OK, enough. I usually try to be very nice, hoping that they will not develop a disliking of rowers and might consider the sport for their kids. But I also go slightly into the “treat them as you might a toddler” direction.

Anyway, you can imagine that turning around to check regularly if one of the five slow boats in front of me hasn’t decided to change course without checking if something fast is coming up from behind is not speeding me up.

Rowing away from the dock, I noticed that the SpeedCoach battery indication was at 0%. That wasn’t helpful. On Saturday, it was still on 60%, and I had forgotten to charge it, thinking that being switched off it wouldn’t discharge so fast. To make things worse, I had forgotten my backup Garmin Forerunner in the locker room and because of the heat I was not willing to return the 300m to the dock, run up the hill to the club house, get the Garmin, and start the training again. So I decided to risk it. If the SpeedCoach would die, I would use counting strokes to roughly measure out the distances and still complete the training.

I guess it was hot. Perhaps I already told you above, but it was hot. I decided that going out at 350W for the 250m would be a good idea, then reduce to 325W for the 500m, row the 750s and the 1k at 300W, and then back up again.

Doing the first two intervals basically fried me. I had to almost come to a full stop during the 500m to avoid a collision with a pedalo that suddenly changed course. During the 750, the 1k, the second 750, I just went with whatever I could produce at roughly 30spm. Mind you, I did monitor form and boat run. It wasn’t an all sloppy affair. It was just that the engine was very inefficient due to my overheated body. After each interval I collapsed, put my hands in the lake to cool down, wetted my hat with lake water, drank some water, and tried to do the rest paddle as slowly as possible to get back some energy to do the next interval. All that surrounded by the sounds of screaming children and rowing through the thick smell of grilled sausages and other barbecue going on at the lake shore.

In the final 500m I tried to hold 300W and failed. In the final 250m I did manage to hold something between 330W and 350W with decent form.

Decent values for finish angle and wash show that I did keep form relatively well

Drive length and effective drive length show that my form didn’t disappear

I tried to row at 600J per stroke but I collapsed to something in the 500-550J range

Crashing on power and average drive force in the third interval

Not happy with the result, but not unhappy either. The circumstances were bloody hellish, and I didn’t handle down. Tomorrow, I will be able to go out first thing early morning. That should be better. Tomorrow is expected to become the hottest day of this summer, with maximum temperatures between 34 and 38 degrees (in the shadow) for Brno.

In a comment to yesterday’s blog, Greg Smith of Quantified Rowing fame encouraged me to follow my dreams. I guess even in my dreams my wishes are relatively small, like in a song by Daniel Landa. Here are English lyrics in my bad English translation:

I am grateful for the chance
that there is heaven after life
where they give you a dry blanket
and maybe they have nice trees there
and clean toilets, I would appreciate those

The song is about a guy waiting to be rescued after a car accident. That’s a slightly more serious situation than being uncomfortable during an erg session. Still I can very much relate to feeling lucky with a dry blanket, dry socks, clean toilets …

The day started with another bike ride to work. It was cold initially, but after 10 minutes it was OK. Strava tells me I broke my record for Na Lesnou nadrazi (towards Lesna railway station). I know exactly why. At Kralovo Pole railway station, another cyclist entered from the park and rode in front of me. On the Strava segment Za Kociankou which is a “false flat”, I passed him, which meant that on the climb to the Lesna station I had to stay in front of him.

In the afternoon, I left the bike at work and took the train home. After dinner it was time for the dreaded Wolverine/Pete Plan Waterfall session: 3km, 2.5km, 2km at 5 minutes rest.

After a 2km warming up with some “speed” bursts (at 24spm, 28spm and 30spm), I started. Knowing the Handle Down risk, I took the 3km very conservatively. As a precaution, I also played one of my favorite erg music lists, Rowbeats #1, which has quite the right rhythm for L2 sessions, enabling you to forget that you still have 2230m to go and just take it stroke after stroke on the beat of the music.

I also started the 2.5km carefully. I usually give up a session somewhere at the beginning of the second interval. About a kilometer into the 2.5km I lost the fear and started to pull. The final 2km was fun.

Back to the erg because of lack of daylight in the evening. Also, September is traditionally a busy month at work, and with Belgium out of the way I have some catching up to do.

The CTC of this month is “Row a nautical mile (1852 metres), take 2 minutes rest then row at Mach 1 (well 751 metres). There are no restrictions.” Looking for training effect, I thought that if I would add 3x1500m to the end, it would be close enough to the 5x1500m of the Pete Plan. The first interval is a bit longer and the second is a whole lot shorter, but after a very short rest. Good enough.

I knew I wouldn’t aim at 2km PB pace, which some people seem to be doing (and they subsequently struggle to keep up the pace on the 751). I also decided to row the first interval from a standing start, even though the “no restrictions” could in theory be interpreted differently. Usually, CTC challenges are “from a standing start” in the first interval, so it seemed natural to me.

I negative splitted both CTC intervals. For the 1500s I decided to stick to 1:53, which is the average pace I rowed my first 5x1500m in fall 2014 (the numbers are still on the wall of my erg room). The first 1500m after the CTC was tough, but then it became easier to just pull 1:53 without thinking. So I will take 1:50.7 as the target for the next 5x1500m.

Up at 5:30 after a pretty bad night (too hot in the bedroom) so not 100% motivated to do this training, the Pete Plan Pyramid. Luckily I was launching together with another crew, so I casually mentioned what I was going to do so as to force myself to not bail out half way through the set.

Had some difficulty with the XGPS160 working with CrewNerd during the warming up. What happens is that you see CrewNerd stop counting the meters. I then usually reset CrewNerd, and everything works. But this time I couldn’t bring up CrewNerd again. It just froze, then crashed. So I started the XGPS160 monitor app, which also froze. Then I tried resetting the XGPS160 and that did the job.
|Dist_|Time_|_Pace__|avg HR|max HR|Remarks
|01997|12:50|03:12.8| 120 | 154 |WU
|00242|00:54|01:51.6| 147 | 169 |250m standing start
|00502|01:59|01:58.6| 168 | 176 |500m
|00746|02:59|01:59.9| 170 | 179 |750m
|01000|04:05|02:02.4| 172 | 179 |1km headwind
|00747|03:12|02:08.5| 174 | 179 |750m headwind
|00498|01:57|01:57.6| 166 | 177 |500m
|00239|00:55|01:54.8| 158 | 170 |250m
|01225|07:37|03:06.5| 139 | 169 |CD

I rowed the first 250 from a standing start and at good pressure. The double was just coming next to me when I started, and it helps to have a boat next to you.

My average split from last time was 1:59.9 and the weather was very similar, so I wanted to stay under 2:00 average.

I thought I was doing fine, focussing on technique, and both the 500m and the 750m were under target. When I turned the boat at the end of the lake I noticed however that what I had considered “no wind” conditions was actually a light breeze from the north. This slowed me down in the following 1000m and 750m. The 750m was particularly slow because it was in the turning north end of the lake. In fact, I was almost running out of lake and was contemplating whether the last 200m would fit or if I would have to make another sharp turn to go on the river. It fit, but I had to hard stop the boat and had literally 3 strokes of lake left.

Then I turned again for the last 500m and 250m. During the 500m, CrewNerd stopped counting meters again, which I noticed about 10 strokes before the end, so I finished that one as a 60 stroke interval, then watched the distance on my Garmin watch for the final 250m.

At 6:15 in the morning. In 14 degrees C and rain. Light wind. No chop, good conditions.

After yesterday’s CTC, Romana and I made a short bike tour. We were on away for three hours. I felt the tiredness in my upper legs this morning and decided to go for a “not full out” 8x500m.

But I wanted to be under 2 minutes for each interval. It was difficult to hold in intervals 4, 5 and 6. Especially #5 was difficult, because of a sudden increase in the headwind. Still, it is interesting how this arbitrary target works. I ended up working much harder in the headwind intervals but it actually made me feel less tired. Interval #8 was an attempt to empty the tanks.

The stats show only part of the warming up. CrewNerd was misbehaving. After about 1200m of rowing (according the Garmin and according to experience) it showed 1500m and the pace was jumping between 1:30 and 2:50. I quit the app and reset it.

A busy day at work. In the morning a visit from a new Vice President. In the afternoon an interview with a major Czech newspaper. The interview went well, but these things are draining. Our communications guy later told me this lady regularly does interviews with prime ministers and the likes. Glad I didn’t know it beforehand.

Anyway, I arrived at the lake tired and uninspired. This is a problem, because my training plan has a fixed set of workout types per week (steady state, intervals, race prep, etc) but I decide on the spot what kind of workout I will do, depending on how I feel and what I have done earlier in the week. My week starting on Monday, I usually do short intervals on that day, but this week that had been a fierce low rate row. I was hesitating between “long” intervals and “short” intervals.

First thing I did was checking the juniors and men’s training schedule on the notice board in the changing room. Hm, the Juniors had a 3x2km/2km rest at 24/26/28spm that seemed doable with my level of energy.

Unfortunately, when I launched I noticed that there was a sailing race going on in the bottom half of our lake. Doing 2kms would get me in the middle of the race in the final 750m. Rather not.

So I reverted to “Cheops”, the Pete Plan Pyramid session. But I allowed my self to rate down in the 750m and 1km sections.

No speed bursts during the warming up, just not feeling like it. Also, the weather was a transition between calm/cloudy and rainy, with random wind speed and direction changes making it difficult to do anything with decent form. Luckily, there was only a light chop.

The wind was still changing direction every 10 strokes or so, but it seemed to be calmer around Rokle,the upper part of our lake. So I dialled up the session on CrewNerd and started the first 250m with a race start. Start was good at 40spm, then quickly settling down for 30spm. Splits looking good at higher 1:40s or lower 1:50s.

About 15 strokes in I passed another single going in the other direction. It was my double partner Radek coming from Lodni Sporty. I wanted to discuss a training on Friday, so after the 250m I did a hard stop, stopped the session in CrewNerd, quick turn and rowed back to Rokle.

After that I knew of no other way to do the training than to restart the entire session. Well, I kind of enjoy those 250s anyway, so it wasn’t a big problem.

This time, with Radek on my tail, I managed a 1:49.0 average split at 32spm. Not bad.

Then a 500m from a rolling start. I focused on “swing” which enables me to keep the stroke rate high without too much effort. CrewNerd showed paces between 1:55 and 2:05 depending on the wind and reported a total time of 1:56.6 at 30spm, which I was happy with.

A few kids in sailing boats had ventured towards the 1000m mark, so I turned again to do the 750m towards Rokle. Doing this one in a calmer fashion, it turned out to be a 2:02.7 pace in 29spm.

Then the dreaded kilometer. I survived this one by counting strokes. One hundred and sixteen strokes at an average pace of 2:03.7, and 28spm.

The second 750m done in slightly calmer water but headwind. Again a 2:03.7 pace in 28spm.

I was now on the good side of the pyramid and as training usually does, my mental energy was slowly coming back to me. The 500m done in 1:58.6, 30spm and looking forward to the final 250m.

During the training the wind had definitely calmed down, and a few strokes before the start of the final 250m it started to rain heavily. I managed the 250m in 1:49.0 pace at 33spm, counting six sets of five strokes.

The rain was too cold so I had to stop and put on an additional layer before doing a cooling down.

The spreadsheet gives slightly different paces than CrewNerd, which is caused by rounding errors.